Children's book writer and award-winning poet Marion Quednau, who has recently moved to the Sunshine Coast, has this to say about her art.
"Long before mobile chit-chat, poetry was the way we shared edgy stories and more profound understanding," she said. "Just ask Shakespeare. It's still a way of measuring our epiphanies, our rites of passage."
Poetry was on many lips this month in honour of National Poetry Month with open mike at the Gibsons Public Library, a return appearance from slam poet Brandon McLeod and a presentation from the Coast statesman of poetry, John Pass, who read for the Gibsons Live Poets Society.
On April 18 Quednau, who earned kudos for being the People's Choice in the 2012 Canada Writes Poetry competition, organized a reading with two of her poetic colleagues, Janet Vickers of Gabriola Island and Heidi Greco from Surrey, sponsored by the Canada Council and the League of Poets.
Quednau showed her sense of humour in her choice of contemporary topics: stories about animals inspired while she was mucking out a horse barn and verse about men's underwear. She closed the reading with a longish poem of strong imagery, about a gold car and a man with blue skin in summer heat. Was he sick, dead, drugged? The images and values of her life spill into her work. Poets have no secrets from their audience.
Vickers, whose latest book is Impermanence (Ekstasis), read from her eight-part poem about unidentified personality disorders in an attempt to understand her own quirks, such as blogging problem disorder and a favourite, Rex Murphy disorder, symptoms of which include the employment of extensive adjectival vocabulary. Emerging poet disorder, as she called it, is difficult to recognize, "due to the sufferer not being valued in society."
Greco read from her chapbooks and spoke of a forthcoming anthology about Jack Layton, to be launched in May. "He was a great believer in the power of art," Greco said.
At a gallery reading last Saturday, program coordinator Susan Telfer took the opportunity to thank Pass for being the very first reader for their Live Poets Society when it began four years ago.
Pass, who is as prolific as a poet can be, has many collections to his credit, including the book that earned him the Governor-General's award, Stumbling in the Bloom.
At the Saturday reading, he read from many of his works, capturing the audience's undivided attention and taking them on an abbreviated journey through the years that marked his evolution as a poet.
Nature is prominent in Pass's work - one poem told of the nest boxes that he and his wife have set up to encourage the birds at their Pender Harbour home. Another described a canoe trip to Wells Gray Park amid the rising lake, the lightning and the mosquitoes. He finished with his latest as yet unpublished collection with a working title of Creation of the Animals, inspired by a painting from Renaissance artist Tintoretto in which a wise and benign god looks upon his works: the ocean, trees, fish, birds and rabbits.
The Live Poets group has one more event coming up on Saturday, May 11, at 7 p.m. at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery. Writer, editor and poet Miranda Pearson will read from her latest collection, Harbour. The Canada Council for the Arts and the Sunshine Coast Credit Union are co-sponsoring this free event.
